What's on the reading list this year!

From political biographies of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Narendra Modi to former army chief Gen V K Singh's memoirs to a bevy of fictional titles by India's most prolific writers including the indomitable Khushwant Singh, 2013 has an interesting store for booklovers.

While Rupa will publish "The Good, the Bad and the Ridiculous" by Khushwant Singh (with Humra Quraishi), another offering from his stable "Khushwantnama: The Lessons of My Life" will be brought out by Penguin.

HarperCollins upcoming list includes "Learning to Serve" (Vijay Amritraj), "Bombay Velvet" by Gyan Prakash, "Riding the Wave: Seven Leaders of Change" by Mini Menon, "Dharavi" by Joseph Campana, "The New Bihar: An Unusual Story of Governance and Development" (N K Singh and Nicholas Stern), "Locks, Mahabharata & Mathematics: An Exploration of Unexpected Parallels" by V Ragunathan, Anuja Chauhan's "Those Pricey Thakur Girls" and "The Cripple and His Talismans" by Anosh Irani.

The house will also publish a cook book by chef-TV host Vicky Ratnani called "Vicky Goes Veg".

The big titles that Westland will be coming out this year are "The Secret Wish List" by Preeti Shenoy, "RIP" by Mukul Deva, "Narendra Modi: The Man, The Times" by Nilanjan Mukhopodhyay, "Sophie Says" by Judy Balan and Amish's "The Oath of the Vayuputras".

Penguin's list has quite a few books from authors of Pakistan and Bangladesh.

"How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" is a virtuoso novel by "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" writer Mohsin Hamid. There is also "The Reluctant Fundamentalist: From Book to Film". Conceptualised by Mira Nair, it is an essential guide to the making of a landmark film.

"The Black Cat" by Neamat Imam is a dark and dystopian portrait of Bangladesh under its first prime minister. Then there is "Their Language of Love", a collection of stories by one of Pakistan's finest novelists Bapsi Sidhwa.

Penguin also has books by Gulzar ("Half a Rupee: Stories"), Sunil Gangopadhyay ("Classic Sunil Gangopadhyay") and Amit Chaudhuri ("Calcutta: Two Years in The City"). It will also publish Habib Tanvir's "Memoirs" (translated by Mahmood Farooqui), "Adi Godrej: A Biography" by Nandini Bhaskaran, "Sachin: Cricketer of the Century" by Vimal Kumar and "My Yummy Mummy Guide" by Karishma Kapoor.